Dying, loved ones dying, the sun exploding, the world ending, everyone and everything ceasing to exist… darkness… these are just some of the things that caused so much fear that a panic attack would ensue.
It starts as a tingle in the middle of my palms and the bottom of my feet, like my limbs are falling asleep. I start getting restless. I need to move.
The more I start to move the quicker it spreads, until eventually it meets in the middle of my chest like an adrenaline rush. This is when the panic happens and fear explodes throughout my entire body. I need out. Out of this place, out of this world, out of this life, and out of this universe.
Then the anger hits amidst all this. Why would someone do this to me? How could someone be so cruel to give me these thoughts for the world to end and there be absolutely nothing? Why am I someone who has to live through this? It’s not fair to be given this with absolute darkness waiting at the other end.
The fear is so bad I cannot think or see straight. My body tells me one thing… run, run anywhere but here. These thoughts run rampant throughout my entire body as I’d run and pace aimlessly until the panic passes. This would last no more than 1 minute, 3 at the most.
Sometimes I could ignore these fears and push them to the back of my brain like they didn’t exist. However, when topics like these were brought up in conversations, on television, or in movies, this panic would rear its ugly head. I would have an attack.
The attack would pass and so would months, sometimes years, until the next one came. A few times I brought up these feelings to people and was answered with, “You’re okay, just breathe, you worry too much,” or my favorite, “You are being dramatic.” So I internalized it. For 13 years it was my biggest secret. The thing about secrets is that they always come out.
January 2011
I was getting ready to start my second semester of my sophomore year of college, and everything was great. As I was moving my things into my sorority house I had a panic attack. As usual I let it run rampant, then walked it off hoping that it would be another few years before the next one hit.
It hit 30 minutes later. Then I had another panic attack, and then another, until I couldn’t go even 10 minutes without having an attack. I couldn’t even calm myself down long enough to take a deep breath. For the next two weeks’ life became so debilitating I couldn’t eat or sleep. I was sick and I knew that there was no hiding this anxiety anymore, at least from my parents.
With the exception of a few friends I was still able to hide this from my sorority sisters and co-workers. By the time I was diagnosed with a depressive panic disorder and put on medication, it was too late to even try to salvage my grades. I failed all my classes that semester.
It was then that my parents decided it would be best to go home for the following year to do therapy and try to recover, but it wasn’t that simple for me. For the next four years I was on and off medications. No matter how many times I tried to ween off my medicine the anxiety always came back. I liked everything better when I was on the medication anyway.
The anxiousness was numbed, and I could pretend like I was all better. The best part was that no one would ever have to know about it. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this had become such a huge part of my identity that I felt completely isolated from the world. I felt so unloved because that part of me was unlovable. This started causing me to seek love from things such as people, alcohol, and sex.
November 2014
This was my life until November 2014, when I came to know the Lord. Between learning scripture and building a relationship with Jesus I started to change. I learned what God says about anxiety, death, and even the end of the world. So the fears lessened.
I was given tools and scriptures to combat anxiety, I had an arsenal ready when necessary. That year sailed smoothly, which I figured it would because I was still on my medication. I knew the only way I was going to face this head on was to get off my medication. By this point though, I was already accepted to go on the world race, so there was no way I was going to face it yet. It could wait a year until I got back. However, God had different plans.
Anxiety on The World Race
Coming onto the race I was already getting weaned off the medication. God had worked it out to where I would only have 90 pills for over 300 days. As the race began I was taking them as needed. I rarely needed them, but the idea of them in my bag was comforting, because they were there just in case I needed a fix.
It was not until my last day in month three, Colombia, in the middle of church, that I realized I had no idea where my medication was. I didn’t remember packing them. That’s when I first felt the Lord tell me “Let them go”. I freaked! I was like really? Let them go!? I can’t be hearing this right! But I was.
The entire church service I contemplated leaving the bottle in Colombia. In the end I couldn’t. I was terrified. What if I have a panic attack? What if I need them? I can’t do it. My host ended up finding them and brought them to me right before we left.
From that point on the moment ate at me. I had my pills, but I knew that I shouldn’t. I knew what I was being asked to do, but every time I got close to tossing them, I psyched myself out with doubt. I wasn’t gonna take them again, but I couldn’t let them go.
My medication had become a crutch and I didn’t even know it. I carried this bottle around with me everywhere for the next month and a half with the intention of throwing it away, but I felt safe knowing it was there.
Then last week I was walking with my teammate when she asked me about them. With just a look she knew they were in my purse. As we stopped to talk about it for the one-hundredth time, I realized we were on a bridge over looking a river in Montenegro. She looks over and I felt God saying it was time.
I thought I was gonna throw up. I was terrified and nauseas, yet I had peace knowing that the time was right. I looked at her, then back at the river, probably about twenty times, and then I let them go.
I have heard many people talk about the feeling of freedom, always thinking that it was a bit exaggerated. But I experienced first hand that it isn’t. For the first time that I can remember, I was able to take a deep breath.
I felt lighter, I felt new, I felt fearless.
I know this isn’t going to be easy. I know I may very well have panic attacks scheduled in my future, and yes the thought terrifies me, but not as much as the thought of relying on medication the rest of my life.
This is a tiny step in a series of steps to come, but step one is to rely on the Lord and only on Him. My medicine was keeping me from that. I have put myself in a position where I know that the attacks may come, but I no longer carry around a crutch. The only thing that I have to depend on in those moments is God, and that’s the point… I am making God my only option. This will no longer be something that the enemy uses to control me, my anxiety… it dies here, on this race.
